Monday, December 28, 2015

Word of the Day

echolalia
\ek-oh-LEY-lee-uh\,
noun:
1. The imitation by a baby of the vocal sounds produced by others, occurring as a natural phase of childhood development.
2. Psychiatry. The uncontrollable and immediate repetition of words spoken by another person.

At the time when speech is being learned, there begins a period of echolalia in which the child repeats with tireless continuation all the words or sentences it hears; either completely, or else their closing cadences.
-- Kurt Koffka, "The Growth of the Mind: An Introduction to Child Psychology"

These "terrestrial echoes" where the "swamp's echolalia," according to Kiwi, who liked to make geography as pretentious as possible.
-- Karen Russell, "Swamplandia!"

I had cultivated a mild sort of insanity, echolalia, I think it's called. All the tag ends of the night's proofreading danced on the tip of my tongue.
-- Henry Miller, "Tropic of Cancer"

Echolalia originates from two Greek roots: echo derived from the name of the mythic nymph Echo fabled to have pined herself away to nothing but her name, combined with lalia meaning "talk or prattle."

Dictionary.com Word of the Day